onemedia

Peggy Holman peggy at opencirclecompany.com
Tue Sep 9 14:48:00 PDT 2008


Hi Mellissa,

Along with a friend and colleague, Stephen Silha, I've been bringing  
together journalists - print, broadcast, and new media people -- for a  
number of years.  You can find out more at  
www.journalismthatmatters.org.

We began with a couple of industry partners, including the executive  
editor of a mainstream newspaper, and have had about 700+ people  
participate in the last few years.  We began small and by invitation -  
working very consciously to bring the "whole system" into the room.   
The most recent gatherings have been open enrollment.  The heart of  
the work has 3 characteristics:

*  it is grounded in conversation (using primarily Open Space)
*  it brings together people from the diverse and evolving "new news  
ecology"  (a term that emerged out of one of the gatherings and has  
been embraced by our "alums")
*  the conversations are at the leading edge of the emerging new story  
of journalism (asking questions that matter for the future of the field)

We are beginning to articulate a new story of journalism, including  
such characteristics as journalism as a conversation rather than a  
lecture; high tech delivery/high touch sourcing of stories (think news  
operation in a library or cafe); media education that has three  
streams: broad-based media literacy, journalism fundamentals, and the  
art of engagement.

Participants consistently tell us that there is no other place they go  
where any positive and creative conversations about the future of  
journalism are happening.  They also tell us how essential the  
diversity of the participants (educators, media reformers, mainstream  
media, audience, technologists, etc.) is to the experience.  And  
people keep coming back!  We now have people saying things like "this  
is my thrid JTM conference and..."

While this may not help with the British part, I can tell you that the  
mainstream journalists seem to pride themselves on maintaining a  
cynical face (some of them call it ironic).  The first Open Space we  
did, I saw some open the door to the room, look at the circle of  
chairs and turn around and leave.  At the end of the day (our first OS  
was the final day of a traditional conference), the Open Space was the  
buzz of the event.

In terms of action planning, there are two routes we have used through  
the years.  The first is to open the space for action.  Those who wish  
to take a next step can do so.  JTM has been an incubator for an  
amazing number of projects.  For example, something called the Common  
Language Project (http://www.commonlanguageproject.com), which puts a  
human face on underreported stories.  Another, which received a Knight  
Challenge Grant is www.spot.us, an experiment that allows an  
individual or group to take control of news by sharing the cost  
(crowdfunding) to commission freelance journalists.

On other occasions, we've invited people to form "coaching circles",  
in which they self-organize, getting together with people of their  
choice and take turns describing a project or idea and getting  
feedback on their idea.

I find that unless there is an explicit intention to do something  
together, that action planning that assumes a common next step isn't  
that helpful.

So, this is a narrower focus than all media, but perhaps there are  
sufficient similarities to be useful to you.

from sunny Seattle,
Peggy


______________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA  98006
425-746-6274
www.opencirclecompany.com

For the new edition of The Change Handbook, go to:
www.bkconnection.com/ChangeHandbook

"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get  
burnt, is to become
the fire".
   -- Drew Dellinger





On Sep 9, 2008, at 12:39 AM, Melllissa Norman wrote:

> Hi everyone
>
> Thank you Lisa for your kind words. Yes it has been an interesting  
> journey losing 4 years of work, writings and pictures but since my  
> amazing trip to San Fransisco I have been talking about working  
> differently so the great thing about losing your notes is that you  
> have to start!
>
>
> some of you know that I am doing a 2 day open space event to help  
> unite the media industries in the UK to see how they can do business  
> together. They are from different companies and different industries  
> but are connected through changes in technology and opportunities of  
> doing business together. I have had a challenging 'client meeting'  
> that I put together a group of people from the industries who have  
> all supported the idea of doing the event but now have cold feet and  
> are scared that it won'
> t work. The industries are known for being slightly cynical and  
> business and training has been done in a certain way but they are  
> not getting results. They love the concept of 'labs' but an  
> unconference is a step away.
>
> Just wondered if anyone was used to working with a British, slightly  
> cynical group who thinks that 'it would work in the states but not  
> here'.   I would love some advice on opening the space at the event  
> for this kind of audience so it is not too touchy feely for them!
> Also I would like to build in action planning time into the two  
> days, there will be around 60-90 people at the event, is there a  
> good way of doing it?
>
> Thank you so much for your help and support to old friends and new.
>
> Melx
>
> *
> *
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>From  Tue Sep  9 22:43:24 2008
Message-Id: <TUE.9.SEP.2008.224324.0400.>
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 22:43:24 -0400
Reply-To: 76066.515 at compuserve.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: douglas germann <76066.515 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: Sugata Mitra:  Can Kids Teach Themselves?
In-Reply-To: <823D3828-12A3-497A-B59F-BA1D960C2361 at litglobal.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Robyn--

Thank you so much for sharing this. This seems to be significant, but I
am not sure exactly how it is so.

			:- Doug.

On Thu, 2008-09-04 at 12:06 -0400, Robyn Stratton-Berkessel wrote:
> Hi Dear Colleagues,
> 
> 
> Here is a truly inspirational 20 minutes video on learning is a
> self-organizing system:  kids self-organizing, collaborating,
> learning, teaching each other, interacting with technology and making
> sense of it.  Our future is so promising.
> 
> 
> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html
> 
> 
> Warmest regards,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Robyn.
> Robyn Stratton-Berkessel
> Creator, Positive Matrix www.positivematrix.com
> Founder, L.I.T. Global www.litglobal.com
> +1 732 291 0462
> +1 917 816 5597 (mobile)
> Skype: robynsb
> 
> 
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